Taipei, Oct. 22, 2012 (CENS)--Fair Friend Ent. Group President Jimmy Chu has announced that his company cuts down sales goal for this year to NT$35 billion (US$1.16 billion at US$1: NT$30) from originally planned NT$45 billion (US$1.5 billion) due chiefly to deep sales recession in mainland China.
Chu estimated mainland Chinese market for machine tools to shrink around 50% as a whole this year and his company's sales in the market to sink at least 20%. The group's marketing arm, Good Friend International Holdings Inc., raked in 22% less sales in the first three quarters this year than the same period of last year thanks to steep recession of the mainland's market.
While expanding sales through acquisitions of machine tool makers Leadwell CNC Machine Mfg. Corp. (Taiwan), DMC Co., Ltd. (South Korea), EMC (Japan) and Jobs s.p. A (Italy), Fair Friend became first Taiwanese machine tool maker to have revenue exceeding the NT$10 billion (US$333 million) mark, with revenue surging to NT$34.8 billion (US$1.1 billion) last year.
Early this year, Chu vowed that his company would ship 20,000 machine tools by the end of this year for revenue of NT$45 billion.
Good Friend International announced it had shipped only 1,805 machine tools from January to September this year, dwindling 35.72% from 2,808 systems it shipped the same period last year. Its revenue for the Jan.-Sept. period this year was RMB910 million (US$144 million at US$1:RMB6.3) or so, contracting around 22% from the same period of last year. But the subsidiary’s revenue from car parking machines, on the contrary, soared 55% from a year earlier to NT$71 million (US$2.3 million) in the first nine months of this year. Its revenue from forklift trucks sank 39% year on year to NT$130 million (US$4.3 million) in the first nine months this year.
Throughout the Jan.-Sept. period this year, the company had total revenue of NT$1.1 billion (US$38.3 million), slumping 21% from the same period of last year.
Chu said the group is planning to acquire two to three Italian machine tool makers at the end of this year, with one specializing in heavy-duty turning machines for aircraft building application.
(by Ken Liu)
